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Amish men ‘shunned’ after nationwide emergency alert outs them for having phones
(www.independent.co.uk)
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My wife and I had a question about how they're charging the cell phones once they have them. Do you have any information on that?
A small solar power pack would do it. My wife has one for camping.
Is solar "allowed"? I've got a small one for "camping" as well. It sucks. It has no built in battery so you have to keep your phone plugged in while in the sun. And it was built back in the flip phone days so it doesn't really put out enough juice to charge a smart phone in a functional amount of time. I keep saying I'm going to go bigger but never have the money or spare weight.
Use it to charge a powerbank if you want to transfer it to your phone later
Based on a documentary I saw recently they seem to be OK with battery powered devices and use them extensively on their farms. But powerlines are considered the devil or something. And autmobiles as well, unless you get a chauffer. Not sure how much this differs between communities though, doesn't seem like there is a central authority for all Amish.
Right, which is the cause of our issue. Where do they get the electricity to charge the batteries? The houses don't have it. The buggies done have it. I'd hate to think of the damage done to a phone using a dirty power from a hand crank generator. Is there some solar cell loophole? "It not electricity, it's sunshine."
Ok you actually made me curious so I threw in a quick search, turns out they aren't opposed to technology or electricity per se at all, it's a much more philosophical stance about being connected to / dependant on the outside world. And it's indeed different for every community/parish to what degree it is allowed, some more conservative groups still don't use it all.
https://amishamerica.com/do-amish-use-electricity/
http://www.amishcountryalmanac.com/2014/02/batteries-and-amish.html
Now please don't ask me how they rationalise buying generators and fuel as not being dependant on the outside world, because I don't have the slightest clue.
Gasoline powered generators apparently, and then the big batteries charged on those can charge the phones or power whatever they need. But again, this is different from community to community as far as I understood it.